If his suspicions were correct, he’d fire up Luke’s fancy-ass computer and do a search on alternative ways to kill vampires other than staking and beheading. Because one way or another, he was bound and determined Luke would die tonight.
Painfully.
“What reason have you given her for your curiosity, Luke?”
Luke’s face said it all, though he compressed his lips into a thin line and said nothing.
Kellan’s hands flexed on Sydney’s, but he kept his touch easy. Oh, yes, tonight his best friend would die. Maybe he could lock him in the wine cellar and turn the temperature below zero. Perhaps making him into a vampire popsicle would work.
After he evacuated the wine, of course.
“Does that reason include your personal stake in vampirism, by chance, Luke?”
“Yeah, it does.”
Lucas turned away, then abruptly turned back. His face hardened into rigid planes that did nothing to diminish the love still glowing in his eyes. Damned besotted fool. “You’re not my father. I’ll make my own choices, asshole.”
Kellan released Sydney’s hands and sat back on his heels. The position left him close enough to grab her if she tried to bolt or, if need be, to act on his sudden urge to decapitate Luke with his bare hands.
“You told her we were vampires,” Kellan said, straining for patience.
“Not we.” Luke sent him a chilling smile. “You.”
Voices assaulted her. Male, female. Both spoke quietly, but the words echoed in Sydney’s head just the same. She clutched the sheets and tried to stem the shakes that were seizing her once again. Worst of all, neither of those voices belonged to Kellan.
“So you believe she’s a latent?”
“I believe it’s possible. From your research, you agree the signs are all there.”
“Well, she is demonstrating some of the most common ones. Several times she’s complained of the stench in here, but I smell little. And there is the issue of light.” Then came the sound of the drapes being yanked violently across the rod, filling the room with crisscrossing beams of sunlight.
Sydney pressed her face into the bedding, trying to hide. God, between Kellan’s cologne and the scents of sex and oddly enough, apples, she couldn’t think. Even her own perfume gagged her now. She sputtered and dragged the pillows over her head, pushing them against her ears as she moaned.
But Kellan didn’t come, as he’d come every time she’d cried out before.
Where was he? And who was this annoying nasally-toned female who discussed Sydney’s latency as if she were a particularly fascinating type of bug? She wanted to yell at them to shut up, but groaning seemed to be the extent of her abilities at the moment.
“Kellan? Where’s Kellan?”
They didn’t answer her, probably because the questions came out as breathy croaks. She knew she sounded pathetic, but he was the only thing keeping her from losing what was left of her mind. The last time she’d awakened, he’d kissed her gently and told her she was the most important thing in the world to him. Maybe that was stupid, but she’d liked hearing it just the same. She’d never been that important to anyone before. Not to her mother, who’d left her on her own when she was sixteen. Not to any of her ex-boyfriends, and certainly not to Tate. Even her best friend Jed traveled a lot and couldn’t be counted on to be there when she needed him.
Really, if she were honest, she’d never been anything but alone. But now there was Kellan. If he ever came back.
As a vicious tremor wracked her body, she thumped her head on her closed fists. Sometimes the pain was unspeakable. The pain, and the overwhelming, mind-numbing fear. Would she ever see her apartment again? Pastry ’n’ Joe? Would she even have a job to come back to? They must think she’d run off.
Hell, would she ever even summon the strength to rouse herself from this bed?
“Kellan!” The scream burst from her throat, unbidden.
“Sydney, Kellan’s just gone out for a bit.” Though Luke spoke lovingly, the distance of his voice told her he’d yet to approach the bed. Obviously, he didn’t want to get too close to the leper latent. “He’ll be back soon, I promise.”
“She is bereft without her sire. This is to be expected.”
My sire?
“He’s not my…sire. I just want him.” Sydney turned her head and slitted her eyes, braving the sunlight for all of three seconds before she shrieked and pulled the pillow back. Fiery spears stabbed her eyelids and burrowed into her brain, but she forced out the question just the same. “Where did he go?”
“He went to gather your things from your apartment.”
She wanted to cry at the mention of her home. Maybe it was dinky and frequently reeked from the neighbors’ cigarette smoke, but the place was hers.
It took all the effort she possessed to open her eyes again. She shielded her face with her hand, anything to cut the glare. “Why?”
“Because you’ll be staying here with us—him. You’ll be staying with him.” Luke glanced at the petite, bespectacled brunette beside him. She kept her gaze strictly on Sydney, as if he didn’t exist. “Here.”
“Says who?”
Kellan strolled through the doorway. “Says me.”
She couldn’t decide if she was thrilled to see him or angry that he was making decisions about her life that she wasn’t even a part of. But when he dropped the myriad parcels and bags he carried to cup her face in his hands, she decided being angry was way overrated.
God, he was so beautiful.
“Shut the curtains, dammit. Can’t you see she’s hurting?”
Luke obeyed the command, plunging the room into a murky half-dark that instantly soothed Sydney. The light was so bright and jarring. So unnecessary.
Kellan stroked her hair as his luminescent golden eyes raked over her face. “You’re awake. Pain?”
“Not so much anymore.” She snaked her arms around his neck as he bent to kiss her, then clung when he would’ve let go. “Stay with me.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and shifted until he could cradle her on his lap. His lips brushed her temple. “I will. I hated being away even this long.”
His body felt so warm and strong against hers. “Please don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t, sweetheart. I promise.”
“Touching. I didn’t realize love was part of the mating process.” Again, that nasal voice infiltrated her mind. “From what I’ve gathered, the most common components are the thirst for blood and sex.”
Kellan stiffened. “Can’t you keep your pet quiet, Lucas? I’m growing weary of her.”
“Lucas, your vampire friend has an attitude problem.”
“Shut up,” Sydney snapped, glaring at the woman over Kellan’s shoulder. Even in the dark, she could make out every detail—her owlish gray eyes behind huge frames, her thin, razor-sharp nose, her smirk. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
But the woman didn’t answer. She stared back at Sydney, then gasped and grabbed Lucas’s arm. “Look at her eyes.” Excitement leaked from her voice. “They’re red! Just like the books said they would become as the change progresses. Oh my God, this is incredible.”
Sydney pushed Kellan away, using strength she hadn’t known she still had, to leap off the bed and race across the room to the bathroom. There she saw the proof herself. The green in her eyes had been replaced by a virulent red that almost engulfed her pupils. She gripped the edge of the pedestal sink and blinked furiously, hoping the optical illusion would fade.
“No, no, no!” She tore at her cheeks as the red intensified. Thick welts rose from her nails, but almost immediately, they began to close. “I’m a freak. A demon.”
“You’re not. You’re not, Sydney. I promise you. Shh, baby.”
When Kellan enfolded her in his arms, she buried her face in his chest and let her sobs free.
“I’m so ugly. How can you stand to look at me? To touch me?”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Could ever
know.”
“How can you say that?” She hated the tears that rained down her cheeks almost as much as the fear that now ruled her. “Did you look at me? My eyes are red. A horrible, evil color. Like blood.”
He eased back and kissed her forehead. “Like passion. Like love.”
She gazed up at him, unable to ignore the needy stirrings low in her belly. Was it his presence that made her yearn so? Or had that irritating little gnome of a woman been right? Was she a latent who mated simply out of thirst for blood and sex?
“I don’t want you to worry about anything. Do you honestly believe I’d let anything happen to you now that I’ve found you?” He growled the last part and tightened his arms until she felt as if he’d locked her in silken bonds of steel that welded them together. But there was no pain. Only pleasure.
She rubbed her nose against the bristly, dark hair that crept over the collar of his green V-neck pullover. The fabric was so soft and snuggly, and his chest so deliciously hard. And his arms were so protective and loving.
Did he love her? Did she love him? Was she crazy to even wonder such a thing after a few days?
“Vampires can’t have children, right?” She didn’t know why the question popped into her mind, or worse, why it tumbled off her lips.
Talk about a mood killer.
“No. They cannot. Vampires are made, not born. The first vampire originated from a simple mistake. Someone who decided to play with something they didn’t understand.”
“Who?”
“A doctor. Several hundred years ago, or so the lore goes. An experiment gone wrong led to a genetic mutation, and the result was a human who thirsted for blood. Blood has regenerative powers, and this person’s blood was especially strong because of the alteration in his code. Once the person drank from an unsuspecting human, he passed on his changed blood and made more bloodthirsty types like himself. Only as the years passed did the doctor realize the mutation had sufficiently changed the blood so that the body continually made new cells. Therefore the host never aged. And never died.”
“So vampires can’t reproduce?” she asked again, still feeling as if she’d somehow stumbled into the middle of an afternoon horror matinee.
“No. Once the transition is complete, the woman’s eggs wither, because that is a function of human life. The need to breathe ceases, as well, although the habit resurfaces at odd times.”
She pressed her cheek against his heart. Not only did it beat, strong and sure, but his chest rose with shallow breaths. “Like now?”
“Yes.” He stroked her hair, brushing damp locks off her forehead in the soothing manner she’d already come to adore. “Being close to you overwhelms me.”
Her lips tipped up, though she didn’t lift her head. “Is that why your heart is beating?”
“No, all our hearts beat. Blood still moves through our bodies, and the heart regulates that. But our hearts don’t have a limited lifespan as human hearts do. Ours aren’t susceptible to disease or the effects of time.”
Before she could comment, Kellan gripped her shoulders and stared down into her eyes with a mixture of sadness and compassion. “We never found your morning-after pills. I couldn’t find them at your apartment, either.”
“You looked?”
“Yes. Though it’s several days beyond the next day now.”
“Yeah.” Sydney bit her lip and gazed down at her flat stomach. Sometime she’d awakened long enough for them to dress her in the tank and shorts she’d worn when she’d encountered their broken-down car. Or supposedly broken-down.
“It bothers you.”
“That I could be pregnant? Yeah, you could say that.”
“Not only that. If you were to become one of us, you would never have children.”
“I’m hardly in a place to be concerned about that.” She forced out a laugh. “I’m a single coffee waitress and chakra reader. I don’t even own a pet. I certainly shouldn’t care about whether or not I can have children—” The sob escaped her before she even knew it was coming.
Stricken, she whirled around and stared at her reflection. At her malevolent red eyes, now streaked with tears. “I didn’t want to believe what was happening to me. Somehow even when you told me the story about being changed, I didn’t fully believe it. I’d stepped into a fairy tale, except my Prince Charmings had fangs.”
“Not two princes. Only one. Only one that cares for you enough to wish he could give you that child you say you don’t want.”
Her breath caught. Why did that statement hurt her even more?
“Not now.” She swiped at her eyes. “I don’t want one now. But someday. I liked knowing the possibility existed. I could get my shit together and have a normal life. And now—” she glared at her reflection as tears dripped off her chin “—now I have no possibilities. Because of you. Because I wasn’t strong enough to resist what you offered.”
She turned away, and though it took more energy than she had left, started walking toward the bedroom. She needed to get out of here.
Who was she kidding? She didn’t know this man. All she knew was that something had been irrevocably stolen from her, and the last thing she wanted was to be around a reminder of all she’d lost.
Her humanity, for one. Her normalcy. Now she was a weak, red-eyed freak. And worst of all? She’d wanted the darkness, the wildness, she’d sensed inside both of them, but especially Kellan. She’d sought out her own death sentence. But the irony of it was that she was still alive.
In a manner of speaking, anyway.
“Sydney.”
“Don’t,” she said as he grasped a fistful of her shirt. “Let me be. Let me go.” She quickened her pace, but she might as well have been walking through mud. Her legs shook so hard they had no more coordination than a marionette’s limbs, and her heart beat so fast she could’ve sworn she heard the blood whooshing through her veins.
Vampire’s blood. Because that’s what she was now. A nightwalker. The undead.
“I didn’t turn you. What you’re experiencing is your body’s own natural reaction to our blood. This was in you all along.”
His voice echoed in her head as if it were coming from a long distance away. He sounded so calm. So reassuring.
And he was a liar.
“Stop it,” she whispered, swaying. She couldn’t keep her balance.
“If you truly are latent, this is what you were meant to be, Sydney. You’re a descendant of the prototype with altered blood chemistry. This was your destiny.”
She flailed as his arms locked around her waist, though she knew if he hadn’t held her she would’ve sunk to the floor. His mouth brushed her earlobe, traveling lower to where that furious pulse threatened to burst through her neck.
“You need blood, my love. That’s why you’re so weak.”
Even the word made her trembles increase, but she didn’t care. Perspiration dotted her brow, trickling down her cheekbones and over her lips until she tasted her own sweat. Needy fists pounded her stomach, but she refused to give in.
“No. I don’t want it.”
“You’re in pain. Your body requires more to make the change, and it’s been days.”
“I don’t want it!” she roared, unsurprised when he swung her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom where the woman and Luke waited. Watching.
Without a word, he dumped her on the bed, then began methodically tying her wrists to the bedposts with strips of cloth he’d left on the nightstand. She couldn’t do more than seethe, because her head now swam to match her wobbly legs. As if that humiliation wasn’t enough, he sliced open his wrist before shoving his bloody arm at her mouth.
“Drink,” he commanded, cupping the back of her head.
She tried to ignore the delicious smell. Forget steak. Here was what she really craved. But maybe if she withstood the hunger, her eyes would return to their normal green. Maybe she’d go back to normal.
If only she could resist.
“Do you w
ant to die? You will, without blood. This is your nourishment now, and you’re starving to death.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.
He gripped her cheek in tense fingers. “Goddammit, drink from me!”
His abrupt touch triggered her eyes to flash open. One look at the thick, red blood oozing out of the slash he’d made caused her body to jerk. She couldn’t stop herself. Her tongue flicked out and licked along the bloody seam of his wound. Before her mind had a chance to acknowledge her intentions, her teeth latched around his arm. Her mouth worked frantically, trying to suck more of that heavenly coppery substance down her throat.
“Untie my hands,” she growled.
“You promise not to stop?”
She nodded and continued to draw on his flesh. His warm, luscious flesh and even warmer, more succulent blood.
He complied with her request. She gripped his forearm with both hands and sank her incisors into his skin again, pulling harder now. God, he tasted wonderful. More wonderful than anything she’d ever conceived.
He groaned, and the sound didn’t speak of pain. Far from it. His free hand threaded through her hair and he pressed his wrist farther between her lips, urging her on. Urging her teeth to sink even deeper.
Teeth, she realized, that were extending as if they were fangs.
Kellan sagged in the chair in the small sitting area across from the bed and rubbed his eyes. They should have been gritty, because he hadn’t slept for more than minutes in days. But lucky him, he was a vampire. Only weeks without sleep would cause his eyes to hurt, and even then the pain would subside with mere hours of rest.
“Lucky me,” he said under his breath, staring at the woman lying motionless on his bed.
Her dark hair spilled over the white pillows, highlighting her pallor. With each day that passed, her once-tawny skin paled further, and her rosy lips darkened. Now they were a delectable shade of claret. And her body had changed as well, curves rounding where hollows had once ruled.
He envisioned her in a dress of deep emerald velvet, with a high neckline that swept along her delicate collarbone. She would be stunning.
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